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<title>Problems With Projection, Or Solidarity? by CherryFlight</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23097553">Problems With Projection, Or Solidarity?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CherryFlight/pseuds/CherryFlight'>CherryFlight</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>SWTOR: The Reflections Legacy [16]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Gen, Just a little canon-bending, Prompt Fill, Scene Extension, Spy friends, Torture (referenced), Trauma sure does mess with brain function</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 13:01:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>878</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23097553</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CherryFlight/pseuds/CherryFlight</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>...Little of column A, little of column B, I think.  Prompt fill for the starter "Are you serious?" from a list on Tumblr.</p><p>Natirru fails to tolerate Lana's decisions.  Were she most other Sith, he would be dead.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>SWTOR: The Reflections Legacy [16]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1643305</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Problems With Projection, Or Solidarity?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Natirru stalked up to the table and slammed a palm down on it, leaning in to partially interpose himself between Lana and Theron, glaring into the former’s Sith-gold eyes.</p><p>“No, Lana. You <em>don’t </em>send someone into torture without warning. Have you never heard of dry-drowning? You could have killed him! You owe him an apology at least for that.”</p><p>Natirru had simply allowed the conversation to play out at first, confident that Theron could defend himself. Lana was level-headed enough she’d see her mistake, surely.</p><p>Except, apparently, not here. He “had to be in the dark”, lest their intentions be discovered. And when she’d said that something in him snapped, broken by the wedge formed by painful memory and instinctive need to shelter and protect.</p><p>“Commander, at the risk of seeming egotistical I won’t apologize for being right. You don’t know what Jedi training-“</p><p>“<em>Were </em>you right, Lana?” he cut in, a growl disrupting the typical measured evenness of his voice. “When we discovered the truth, you assured us his training would prevent them from prying the location of this safehouse from his mind. You trust it for that, you trust it to suppress his vomit response - for stars knew how long, or against what - but <em>didn’t</em> trust it to hide the fact of deliberate capture? Which is it, did you trust it or not?”</p><p>She stared up at him, unflinching, but he saw a flicker in her eyes, a bloom of heat in her face, that told him she had trouble finding a satisfactory answer. He pushed off the table, and stepped back, folding his arms.</p><p>“The focus that went into keeping his airways clear could have also been used to hide an ulterior motive, if he’d known to go into it on an empty stomach, or had time to prepare.”</p><p>“I-…”. But still, she hesitated. She wasn’t certain she’d been wrong, or perhaps desperately did not want to have been wrong. She was a reasonable person, but had clearly been so sure of this.</p><p>“Morality, logic, or trust, it doesn’t matter why. You still owe him that apology.” When she hesitated a moment longer, face heating up a slight bit more, he added a stern, “Do it.”</p><p>“Are you seriously lecturing a Sith Lord?” Abric hissed in a panicked whisper, and Natirru wasn’t quite sure how long he’d been at his side. He wasn’t quite sure how he’d been so blinded to so much of the scene, including the fact that Lana could kill him with a thought if she wished. Something in the back of his mind whispered something about trauma responses, and he hushed it, watching Lana’s reaction.</p><p>She let out a slow breath, her face cooled slightly, and she looked across the table at Theron. “Theron…I recognize I betrayed your trust, and for that, I’m sorry.”</p><p>The entire room seemed to relax, except Jakarro, who declared he’d had enough of this and left. Natirru glanced behind him to see Flow and Oberon standing there with clasped hands. They were tense, but had made no move to defend him. He was grateful for their unspoken affirmation that Lana had never been a threat.</p><p> </p><p>—-</p><p> </p><p>As he and Oberon approached the shuttle pad, Natirru noticed a familiar figure in red helping the droids haul food and fuel into the shuttle.</p><p>“Theron!” he called, raising a hand in greeting. Smiling, Theron handed his load off to a droid and waved back. “Is it wise to strain yourself? Do you need further treatment?”</p><p>“I’ll be all right,” he said. “I’m not bad with medicine, myself. Thanks, though. For…earlier. Didn’t think an Imperial spy would stand up for me.”</p><p>“I doubt you haven’t noticed we aren’t like most Imperials,” Oberon said.</p><p>Theron chuckled nervously. “Yeah, leave it to me to find the weird ones, right? You two, Lana…”</p><p>“Why are you here?” Natirru asked. “You aren’t traveling with her?”</p><p>“Figured I could catch a ride with one of you,” he said. “I just wanted to, you know…say thanks. For that.”</p><p>“Don’t mention it, Theron,” Natirru said. “No one deserves to go through that.”</p><p>Oberon interrupted the conversation with a brief hug and a “Safe travels, Father.”</p><p>He held him tight in return. “You too, Oberon. I’ll see you on Yavin.”</p><p>They parted ways towards separate shuttles, and Natirru waved Theron along with him.</p><p>“So, yeah, about that - that seemed to get kind of <em>personal</em>…” Theron said, and left the obvious question unasked.</p><p>“Planting information,” he said, and had to fight a shudder at the memory. “Not with your people,” he added, once he’d fought the instinctive reaction down.</p><p>“Do I want to ask?”</p><p>“Best you don’t. I hope you don’t mind that I’ll have to have my crew shadow you while we travel.”</p><p>Theron shrugged. “I’d do the same.”</p><p>Natirru chuckled. “That’s why I admitted it. Just another day in the life of a spy, hm?”</p><p>“Guess some things don’t change no matter what side you’re on.”</p><p>“If there’s anything all this has taught us so far, it’s that sides make less difference than we think,” said Natirru. He wondered if Theron had heard anything about the inside agent known as Legate, and if he would think that was why he’d helped him if he’d known.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So this is the first piece that extensively involves companion dialogue, and they're a pair of fan favorites, at that.  I'm terrified of writing for these two because I don't want to get them wrong but I had to do the Reflections Legacy spin on this scene. (hence a lot of indirect dialogue and a couple lines lifted directly from the canon scene...) Really, Shadow of Revan - being where the stories really converge - was a lot of fun to headcanon for, and I should do more things for these people in that timeframe.  I will <i>definitely</i> have Theron figure out that he and Natirru have been allies for a lot longer than he thought one day.</p><p>By the way? Natirru is definitely no longer functioning at 100% - go back to "Too Good to Last" for the best comparison, if you'd like.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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